Ready or Not
by PimpMasta Popo
Summary: Goku and Chichi revisit their relationship and their fears on the night before the Cell Games.
The presents had all been put away, goodbyes to Krillin and the Ox King had been said, and the cake cleaned off of the walls. Gohan had sleepily retired to his room giving his father a bright smile and a warm hug to his mother. The stars and the moon shone brightly on Mount Paozu and Goku had showed his wife exactly what she meant to him.

His fingers traced lazy patterns onto her bare back as she nestled close to him, still feeling the haze of their lovemaking. The wave of telltale drowsiness following their escapades had yet to find either of them. Her head on his chest and her arm draped over his muscled stomach, Chichi reveled in the pure feeling of him in their bed again. She leaned into his touch as his practiced fingers made their way up and down her spine. His breathing was even, but not yet in the deep pattern of his sleep. Her thoughts inevitably turned to the impeding doom. "What time are you leaving tomorrow?" her voice was a whisper. She tried not to sound impudent, but desperately failed.

"Dawn." He answered simply, his hand never leaving her back. He drew her closer to him.

"Perhaps we shouldn't have stayed up so late." She murmured, nestling her head onto his chest. She felt the deep rumble of laughter and she smiled.

He brushed some of her raven hair off her shoulder so it cascaded down her back. "I wouldn't change a thing." His words were flippant, but his tone betrayed him. He was thinking about it, that much was clear. She was too. The fight with Cell was forefront in their minds.

"You had a nightmare last night."

"I get them a lot now." He admitted, not afraid to share the information with his wife.

"What about?"

He didn't answer right away. The nightmares had started on Yardrat. He trained with the people there and gained control over his power, but at a terrible cost on his psyche. Freiza haunted his dreams. The diminutive villain always visited him on the days his training hadn't gone well. It was the same every time. Freiza landed on Earth, headed straight to Mount Paozu and tortured his family. His taunts and Gohan and Chichi's screams would echo in his mind long after he'd awoken. The nightmares stopped only briefly when he returned home.

Things didn't stay quiet in his mind for long. The nightmares were a daily occurrence while he battled the heart disease. The Androids showed up every day and every day they killed the people he loved. He watched them kill his son and his wife hundreds of times. Their lifeless eyes staring into nothingness was burned into his memory as the Androids laughed. Fury would bubble up in him as he tried to battle back, tried to avenge his family, but the punches would never land. The Androids were replaced by Cell as the star of his nightly terrors now. It was an unfortunate thing he'd passed those nightmares onto his son.

"The people that want to hurt me and the people I love." He answered finally. These were things he didn't want to burden her with. She had enough on her mind. He knew she was thinking about the boy down the hall. She had tried, and failed, to protect him from his father's world. He could feel her slipping away from him, her consciousness settling on the fight against Cell.

"Please don't take him." She knew her plea wouldn't change anything. She knew that in the morning Gohan would don his Namekian gi and fly away with his father. She knew that it was pointless to ask, to beg, to cry. But she couldn't help it.

"I can't do that, Chi."

"He's all I have." She whispered, fighting the tears that had started to well in her eyes.

"What about me?" he asked jokingly, but there was no humor to it.

"I can't ask you to stay. You're the only hope Earth has." She said. His heart sank to his stomach. The knowledge of Gohan's power and his potential weighed down on him, crushing him. Could he tell her? It had become abundantly clear in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber that Gohan's power could easily surpass his own. Gohan was the only hope Earth had, not him. "But why does _he_ have to go?" Her question pulled him out of his thoughts. The answer was clear to him. Gohan was going to defeat Cell.

Lying wasn't something that came easily to Goku. "I need him there." He replied, trying to downplay the truth as much as possible.

"Why?" her voice was breaking, the word cracking underneath the burden of her misery.

"Do you remember when I proposed?"

His question caught her off guard. A choked sob escaped her throat and turned into a laugh. "If you call that a proposal." The tears receded and she smiled again. "I can't believe you thought a bride was food." She laughed once more as she looked up to meet his eyes. The aquamarine looked foreign to her for a moment, but only a moment.

He smiled, a warm and genuine smile meant only for her. "I really did." The humor slowly faded from his face he studied her.

"Why did you?" Her eyes were shining with unshed tears and the reflection of the moonlight pouring through their window. "Propose, I mean."

"I saw how happy it made you. And I would have done anything to make you smile again."

His hand reached up to caress her face. He tucked her hair behind her ear, studying her smile. It wasn't instantaneous, but he'd fallen in love with that smile. Their marriage hadn't been perfect in the beginning; it wasn't perfect now. But he'd learned what it meant to love someone. _Really_ love someone. The way he'd loved Grandpa Gohan.

He learned that she hated when he left his clothes on the floor, or when he didn't shower after training. He learned she loved to swim and read. He learned that nothing pushed her buttons quite like being babied and she demanded his whole strength when they sparred. He learned she had a short fuse, but the fire was easily extinguished. He learned that he missed her when he was training by himself and that she invaded his thoughts when he was meditating. He learned she was selfless and fiercely protective of those she loved, that she looked before she leapt and feared what she didn't know.

Love didn't blossom immediately for him as it had for her. It was a gradual growth, but it grew stronger every day. Her love was a constant, inextinguishable flame. His was a drop of rain that precluded a storm. A few drops fell, and then a few more, then a few more until it was pouring all around him.

He had known she was pregnant before she did; her smell had changed. His heart swelled when she confirmed the news for him and it nearly broke into pieces as he watched her scream in pain trying to bring their child into the world.

When Gohan was an infant, Goku barely slept. Not because of the crying, although that was constant. For hours he would watch the boy curl up in his mother's arms, whimpering softly as Chichi hummed to make him fall asleep. Nothing calmed Gohan like being in his mother's arms.

"He's so much like you."

"Me?" She pushed herself up a bit to look at him. Her chin rested on the back of her hand.

Goku smiled. "Yes, you."

Chichi scrunched up her nose and shook her head. "Oh no, Goku. He is definitely your son. The tail, the appetite," her hand reached up to touch his newly colored locks. "The dye job. He's all yours."

His hand captured hers and brought it down to his chest. "I'm talking about his passion, his instincts, his strength… he gets those from you."

"His strength?" Chichi asked in amazement. "Goku, you're a hundred times stronger than me. You sent me flying through the house, remember?"

He chuckled softly, recalling the incident vividly. But she wasn't following his point. "I'm the strongest man in the world, right?"

"Undoubtedly." She said proudly, interlacing her fingers through his.

"And you're the strongest woman in the world, right?"

She blushed. "I wouldn't say in the world, and certainly not anymore. I train a bit, but if a tournament came around I wouldn't-"

"You're the strongest woman in the world." Goku repeated, stating it as a fact. "There's a reason Gohan has all of this potential. He's part me … but he's also part you."

She held his gaze for a long moment before turning away and putting her head on his chest. "I don't want him to be like me." She said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Why?" He felt the wetness on his chest, her tears. His thumb brushed over her knuckles.

"I'm scared."

He wanted to tell her he was scared too. He wanted to say he was afraid Gohan wouldn't take up the mantle of protecting the Earth, that maybe Cell was too strong to be defeated. Instead, he said nothing.

"Promise me you'll come home."

"I'll do everything I can to protect the Earth."

She nodded, aware of the words he was speaking, but more aware of the words he wasn't saying. "I love you."

"I love you too." That he didn't have to lie about or bend the truth. And he never would.


End file.
